The Federal Highway Aid Program is remarkable indeed. The highly publicized facts about it are covered in our feature in this issue. But let us look at some of the never mentioned items that go with it. Items like labor cost more than doubling in 10 years while steel invokes the wrath of our nation for a $5.00 boost to keep up with labor's demands. Or the incompetence displayed in estimating the projected cost of this project at $46.8 billion. It is so far off, it looks like a schoolboy truant did the job.

An example of the low level of competency with which our federal government is apparently content, is reflected in these figures: More than 60% of the time- 'till-deadline is used up, with completion of less than 50% of the project already producing a $4 billion deficit. At present inflation rates caused by cheap money, the project's 41,000 miles will cost $62 billion with an $8 billion deficit ... $70 billion in all. That's an average cost of $1,725,000 per mile, roughly, or an error in estimating cost of nearly a million dollars PER MILE! That's quite an oversite-80% off.

To complete on schedule, the present work level (2400 miles per year) will have to increase geometrically by 10% over the preceding year's total. That puts construction in the final year at double the present rate, or 5000 miles. At present rate of progress, completion will be two years late; an error of 15%. Of the original $46.8 billion for the project, $24 billion has produced 20,000 miles and $4 billion debt. Taking the $28 billion cost from the allocated funds leaves $18 billion with 55% of the work not finished. Somehow the bureaucrats are now planning to finish the job at a much lower cost while tax demands on the dollar are pushing inflation higher and higher to give us "great society" that wages war on poverty, disease and prejudice with one hand, attempts to conquer the vast reaches of the universe with one hand, and wages war with the other hand. The three hands just prove that monstrous undertakings are the result of monstrous ideas, fraught with monstrous errors that cost the people monstrous amounts.

So far the cost per mile has been just under $600,000. The average cost per mile will skyrocket to $1,750,000 at the present inflationary process which has taken place in the first half of the program's life, so that an $8 billion deficit will result from a $62 billion program. But here we must pause to take stock. What is 70 billion dollars, or for that matter, what is 70 billion anything?

70 billion is all of these things:-It is a common (in Washington) word used to denote an amount. $70 billion would buy the entire passenger car production of the United States for the last five years. $70 billion, at the rates charged Peter Minuet by the Indians for Manhattan Island, would buy all of the islands of the world including the island continent of Australia, with enough left over to buy all of the bodies of water surrounding those islands to insure privacy. $70 billion, at the national average, is the TOTAL LIFETIME INCOME of the adult males in a city the size of San Francisco, 70 billion is the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) for an hour and 40 minutes. At that speed we could circumnavigate the globe twice while blinking an eye. (Average blink is 1/5 second). 70 billion is the total number of residents of the United States from the landing of the Mayflower in 1620, to the end of World War II. $70 billion is $400 from every human being in this nation. $70 billion, at a hundred dollars per second, would require two thousand two hundred years-24 hours a day-to accumulate. $70 billion laid end to end, would provide a band around the earth at the equator nearly 60 feet wide by 24,000 miles long. The width coming from the 276 single rows of dollar bills circumnavigating our planet. 70 billion is one hell of a lot of anything!

At an average of $1,750,000 cost per mile, it is interesting to note that to pave the same mile entirely with pennies the cost is $500,000 cleaner. If we get fancy and do it in nickels, the cost would increase $75,000 per mile, but why not go first class? After all, it's only OUR money!